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02Dec2015

Africities 2015: Women’s Voices on the Implementation of Agenda 2063

On the 2nd of December 2015 and in the framework of the 7th Africities Summit in Johannesburg, a session on Women’s contribution to Agenda 2063 of the African Union took place in the morning right after the official opening of the political sessions.

The panel of this session comprised Mrs. Jacqueline Moustache-Belle, Mayor of the capital city of Seychelles, Victoria, as the moderator. The panelists were Mayor Fatimetou Mint Abdel Malick of Mauritania, Ms. Chantal Uwimana from Transparency International and Ms. Rose Molokoane from Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI).

The moderator, Mrs. Moustache-Belle, welcomed all the participants to this very important session that puts, according to her, the Agenda 2063 at the heart of all dialogues, especially that this agenda focuses on women and youth. She stressed that the Agenda 2063 aims at ending all forms of violence and discrimination against women, fully empowering girls and women and seeking gender parity in the sphere of governance and other sectors.

And before giving the floor to the panelists, Mayor Moustache-Belle made it clear that in Seychelles, the MDGs were achieved.

Mayor Fatimetou Mint Abdel Malick focused on the fact that women constitute more than half of the population, however, they still suffer from poverty (more than 60%), illiteracy and lack of access to ownership which hinders them from reaching decision-making positions. This situation must be addressed because women, who are in charge of raising the next generations, cannot remain in the fringes of society without representation and means of empowerment. She also said that when women are in decision-making positions, they fight for real changes and not for positions.

Mayor Fatimetou Mint Abdel Malick from Mauritania insisted that there is a need to reassess the partnerships formulas in a way that encourages development partners to recognize local governments as full partners.

Ms. Rose Molokoane from Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI) who started her allocation with a lively welcome insisted that they want to be engaged. She believes that people must be at the center of all dialogues taking place at the international, national and local levels. She also insisted that they, as SDI, are ready to collaborate with all partners to provide data of informal settlements that they have collected from the various countries where they are established.

The representative of Transparency International Ms. Chantal Uwimana focused her presentation on aspiration n°3 and aspiration n°6 of the Vision 2063 of the African Union. She said that 22% of Africans say they can make a change when it comes to corruption. Citizens are struggling from the repercussions of corruption and impunity cannot be carried out. The Anti-corruption fight is not organized and is still weak on the local level. There is also a need to establish advocacy and legal advisory centers to help citizens facing corruption.

Ms. Chantal also said that corruption is a huge obstacle hindering women from access to decision-making positions which calls upon concrete measures to fight corruption.

The floor was then given to the audience to react to the presentations.